


And Cried

by JJxWillxProtectxYou



Series: Through Their Eyes [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, sad!harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJxWillxProtectxYou/pseuds/JJxWillxProtectxYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in seven years, Harry was allowed to simply be Harry, a 17 year old boy who had seen too much and had not had the opportunity to be shielded from the harsh world. He did not have to be Harry Potter, leader of a war that had started long before he was even born. He didn't have to say he was fine, and pretend everything was ok.</p><p>or</p><p>Harry Potter has a small, understandable breakdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Cried

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the aftermath of the Final Battle, just after Harry killed Voldemort. It is a continuation of a chapter in DH. Anything you see or recognize from the book belongs to J.K Rowling.  
> I listened to "Little House" by Amanda Seyfried while writting this. I reccomend you listen to it while reading.  
> 

Everywhere he looked, he saw families reunited, and finally, he saw the two whose company he craved most.

"It's me," he muttered, crouching down between them. "Will you come with me?"

They stood up at once, and together he, Ron and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as they climbed.

Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition: 

“We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter's the one, 

And Voldy's gone moldy, so now let's have fun!”

"Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?" said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through.

Harry turned around to face his two best friends, who had stuck by him after all these years. He opened his mouth, perhaps to thank them for always being there, maybe to laugh or cheer, or simply yell in the relief that Voldemort was finally gone.

But Harry did none of those things. Harry turned around to face his two best friends, who had stuck by him after all these years. He opened his mouth…

And cried.

He cried for the people he had lost, and for the people he had not known, and now would never get the chance to. He cried because even though the weight that had dragged his soul down so much his entire life he did not know how he could have missed it was gone, he felt no lighter. He did not feel relief. He felt sadness, and pain, confusion, and loss.

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione whispered, and then her arms enveloped him, followed by Ron’s, whose long limbs wrapped around the both of them.

For the first time in seven years, Harry was allowed to cry. He was allowed to process everything that had happened to him, because if truth be told he had not been able to make sense of a single thing since Hagrid knocked down his door and announced he was a wizard. Harry was allowed to simply be Harry, a 17 year old boy who had seen too much and had not had the opportunity to be shielded from the harsh world. He did not have to be Harry Potter, leader of a war that had started long before he was even born. He didn’t have to say he was fine, and pretend everything was ok, for the sake of the mission. 

He knew that both Hermione and Ron were crying with him; for Fred, for Remus and Tonks, for everyone else they had lost, and for the things they had been forced to do since Voldemort's return, things that their long lost, naive 11 year old selves would never have even imagined.

Hermione’s hand held the back of his head, her fingers running through his black hair. “It’s going to be ok Harry. It may not seem like it now, but it’s going to be ok.” She whispered in his ear.

Harry shook his head. He did not know how anything could ever be ok again. He had lost too much, done too much; he didn’t feel he could ever come back from this. 

His Father’s dead body filled his mind, his Mothers pleading screams echoed; “Not Harry! Please, take me instead, but not Harry!”

Quirrell’s face, crumbling under his young hands, was next. The man’s screams of pain as he died, reverberating through his head.

Harry, running from the basilisk, just a year later. Plunging the sword of Gryffindor through its skull, to its brain. ‘Memory Riddle’s’ inhumane scream as he died.

Pain filled his every being. Dementors were surrounding him, and he thought he was going to die. Sorrow stronger than he had ever felt settled deep into his chest, as he thought of losing his new found Godfather, after he had been unfairly taken away for most of Harry’s life.

A dragon, breathing fire at his face, and the sensation of drowning. Cedric’s blank stare, the reason Harry could now see thestrals. Voldemort, torturing him, and feeling an almost physical pain when forced to leave his parents ghosts.

Mr. Weasley getting attacked and Sirius dying, because of a foolish mistake on Harry’s part. Trying to use the cruciatus curse, something he never thought himself capable of. And then Voldemort, invading his mind.

Professor Dumbledore, pleading with an invisible person, looking weaker than Harry had ever seen him. Inferi, trying to pull him into their world. And then, seeing the Headmaster killed and pushed from the balcony, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

And now this year. There was too much. Ron leaving, Hermione being tortured, having to listen to her screams. Dobby, with a knife in his chest. Memories of murders he had not committed. Fred, Tonks and Remus, the last Marauder, were all dead. Discovering that a man he had hated since starting at Hogwarts, had actually been the reason for his continued survival, but also the reason his parents were dead.

There was too much, and Harry did not think he could come back from it.

He did not say any of this, though, because he did not need to. Ron and Hermione, his two best friends, who had stuck by him all these years, knew exactly how he felt. And so they stayed there, holding each other, and cried.


End file.
